Chapter Text
The trees swayed gently in the breeze, their brown leaves collecting in small piles on the pavement and dirt. Stumps of wood cut into the dimming light, the corpses long erased from their friends’ memories as the trees stood proud.
It had recently rained, so the remaining live leaves were heavy with drops of water slowly dripping down, the liquid of life collecting in puddles or dips in the wood.
Footsteps echoed into the still air as a person walked through, their earbuds tinkling with soft music. They stopped as the sunset came into view, only twenty yards from an old house. The house, old and broken down with age, stood tall with darkened windows and rotten wood. It was abandoned, and the wind blew around it, whistling through the open spaces. The wrap around porch would've been white had it been new. Now, the elements and insects dug into the wood, leaving gashes on once stable pillars with faded or washed away paint. The person shuffled forward, guilt and regret lacing their steps as they drew closer, leaving behind the puddles of wetness.
They pushed their hood off their head and gazed up at the house, their dark eyes flitting over the building's injuries gained over the years. Soft ripples of liquid sounds echoed into the growing dark, yet they ignored it as the streetlamps turned on one by one. It was a common sound during post-storm in this area. The land around this house had so many dips and ditches that forming a pond in at least one of them was common. The wind also had a habit of blowing against the water, so it would frequently create sounds one would hear next to a lake or pool.
Huffing, the person slung their backpack onto the ground and fished through it. They smiled and pulled a flashlight out before slipping the backpack on. As they crossed onto the threshold, the sunlight finally disappeared, leaving their grandfather's run down manor in shadows. They fished out a spare set of keys from their front pocket and disappeared into the rotten house. The door creaked close behind them.
"-the disappearance of May Ston made it onto the front page of the newspaper?" A small group of teenagers whispered among themselves as they stopped in front of the old house. They quickly glanced around them before running across the lawn and into the house, giggling along the way. Two golden eyes peered out from under thick black hair as they watched the group of humans disappear, it's wavy hair floating and blending into the puddle around it as it slowly climbed out of the water.